


Complimentary Colors

by chairchair



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dealing with loss by fucking, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Quadrant Confusion, Quadrant Vacillation, Red Romance, Unwanted Matespritship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:08:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chairchair/pseuds/chairchair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ignoring Trollian notifications was one thing, to be sure, but when he nearly broke down the door of your hive screaming about Fef, you didn't really have any choice but to let him in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Complimentary Colors

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this on and off for about two months so I decided it was about time to post it.

You ignored his wigglerish, strained attempts at hate flirting for sweeps, dismissing them as his usual desperation to pail the closest troll that moved without thinking the situation through.  

He was just one of those trolls you stay away from, the ones that your lusus warned you about. The kind that muddies up all your quadrants and leaves you wondering why you're suddenly standing in front of the imperial drones with a knife to your throat and nothing to contribute but empty buckets and a paleflipped matesprit.  

Ignoring Trollian notifications was one thing, to be sure, but when he nearly broke down the door of your hive screaming about Fef, you didn't really have any choice but to let him in.  

Her relationship with you had been a subject of contention for a while, after all, and you'd figured something had just tipped the scale – something had, of course, though not exactly in the manner you'd expected. It takes you a while to string the screaming into actual words, but when you do – 

"Dead?" you repeat, your voice cracking with shock. This had to be some kind of cruel joke, right? Some last ill attempt at a hate romance? You swallow and try again. "What do you mean, dead?" Death isn't exactly a novelty in troll society, to be true. But the heiress to the imperial throne, the one troll who should have outlived you all; she isn't exactly the expected subject of a culling spree. "She can't have been–" 

"She wasn't culled," he says hurriedly, in a visible attempt to calm himself down enough to speak without shouting again. "It was–" he's still having trouble forming words, though, you can tell, and it's grating at your bloodpusher despite yourself, "–it was her lusus. An accident, I don't know how it happened, I... Fuck, Sol, I didn't want to come here, I just thought you should know. Since you had... feelings for her too."

"Shit." It's not the best response, but it's really all you can think of to say.  

"I don't know what to do, it wasn't my fault, I was having trouble getting enough lusii for Gl'bgolyb and it just...I..."And here you thought he came for more awful attempts at blackrom. His broken, hopeless face is so fucking pitiful it's almost enough to make you feel sorry for all the bad things you've thought about and said to him over the sweeps, right up until, in the middle of his explanation of why her lusus went nuts, he stops short and shoves you right against the wall of your hive. "What the _fuck,_ ED?" you manage, your sympathetic thoughts flushed right down the load gaper. You struggle to push him off and kick an empty can of grubjuice into your beehive mainframe instead. "I know you're fucking shitty at caliginous romance but even you should know this isn't exactly the best time–" The look on his face is enough to make the rest of your sentence backtrack into your ignorance shaft.  

"Sol, what am I supposed to do? She was my _soulmate_." His voice actually wavers on the last word, and you have no fucking idea what you're supposed to be doing here, except maybe scream that you didn't sign up for this shit. 

"I," you say, still trying and failing to struggle free, then look at him, sighing with resignation. "...Excuse me, she picked me over you, if you recall." You really, _really_ , don't want to start this discussion while Feferi is still probably being digested by her monstrous lusus – there are kind of more important things to worry about – but is he really so deluded? 

"And that's the fuckin' problem now, isn't it?" he says, leaning in close to your face. He's so close that you can see – oh fuck, is he starting to cry? You really, really hope that seadweller eyes are just naturally watery or something because you do not need a blubbering Ampora on top of everything else you suddenly have to deal with. He comes even closer, until you can't see his eyes at all, his fins brushing your cheek, for his next words. "You never gave me a chance to win her back." 

Fuck. His tone is suddenly icy, so much so that it sends a shiver down your spine, makes you remember that his strife specibus is one of the deadliest obtainable, that he killed fucking _angels_ without a second thought on his planet, for fuck's sake. It's easy to forget when around you, he's always so pathetic, his blackflirting easily dismissible. You start to wonder if you should get ready for a defensive strife, but in a second you feel him relax, shiver a little bit, as if he doesn't have to energy to keep up him facade. 

"Sol... I'm all alone now." These mood swings are going to give you a fucking aneurysm. It's almost enough to _actually_ make you go pitch on him, with the unfairness of it all. How dare he come to you like it's all your fault, like you're somehow going to fix things, like this news isn't fucking you up as much as it obviously is him, that you're just a lot better at hiding it? But maybe that's what he's going for? Maybe it _is_ another attempt at blackflirting and he's just gotten sneaky?

For some reason, when he pulls away a little bit, maybe to gauge your reaction, your last thought is enough to  to make you do something incredibly stupid. You lean forward, and kiss him hard. 

**

At first, it's exactly how you expected it to be: rough, pointy, tasting a little like fish but mostly like shame, like you finally stooped to his level. And then, when you think it's about to make the progression of the next stage of kismesis makeouts, which usually involve some biting and bloodloss and which you would definitely be a lot more okay with than this shit because at least you could vent some of your frustration into injuring him a little, the mood changes in a way you wouldn't have expected. 

Instead of getting harsher, the kiss grows gentler. You feel his mouth soften against yours, and the despair is still there but the anger has lost its edge completely, a divergence so strong and unexpected that you can't help but respond in turn, tilting your head just so and lifting a hand up to brush his highblood-cold cheek. You're even tucking your nails in so you can't scratch him accidentally, and when you realize this your meal tunnel fills with revulsion. _Fuck._ How did he get you flipped so fast? You KNEW he'd muddle up your quadrants, you knew you shouldn't have gotten involved at all, and besides, you can't flip red, you have FF in your red quadrant...you...have...

Right. You have fuckall. How the hell did you forget already? Apparently, Eridan is screwing with your thinkpan more than you thought.

"ED, shit," you say, breaking away to look at him. Maybe there's still time to kick him out of your red quadrant, untangle this involvement before it can get any worse or at least get him to flip black again. 

"What is it, Sol?" he says unsteadily, and... he's doing it. He's actually crying. Well. That's that, you're a fucking goner, this is it. You actually start to choke up a little too as you shake your head, speechless, and he starts kissing you sweetly again and _fuck this fuck the red quadrant with this asshole you hate it so much_  but you can't stop, the sympathetic part of your thinkpan that has been dormant for so long has dusted itself off and is going for a marathon jog. "I had no idea you felt this way about me," he continues against your mouth and you want to punch him in the gut for it but you don't, you pull him tightly against you instead, what the _fuck_ is wrong with you. You kiss him deeper, suddenly overcome with emotion; your bloodpusher is crumbling with thoughts of FF and ED isn't fixing it, he's pulling out the dredges of his own bloodpusher and mixing them with yours, wrapping his stupid cape around you and making you feel annoying safe as you slip to the floor of your hive, your legs suddenly jelly beneath you as you lose the will to put effort into standing. 

He's there with you, wiping the tears from your face that you didn't know were there and you deepen the kiss before it goes too far into pale territory, because you do actually have a living moirail and you don't think AA would take too kindly to being kicked out of a quadrant by _Eridan_ , of all trolls. 

Fortunately, he responds in kind rather than rebelling and you breath a sigh of relief that almost turns into a moan as he suddenly shoves a cold hand up your shirt. 

"Shit, Sol, you're so warm," he breathes, and boy, he's really getting into this. You guess he'll settle for any quadrant at this point. You would too in his position, if you didn't have any sense of shame.

You suppose at this point you're not one to talk.

"And you're cold as fuck," you reply cordially, swallowing as he trails long fingers across your grub scars. You try not to think about how messed up it is that the thing that got him in your pants was the death of your mutual love interest, and concentrate instead on the removal of aforementioned pants as your bulge strains for freedom. You also shout a mental "fuck you" at anyone who's ever tried to tell you about healthy ways of dealing with loss, because unabashedly red-pailing your former rival for the very same quadrant is working out quite well for you, thanks, or at least you attempt to mentally shout with a part of your thinkpan that isn't completely occupied with getting both of you stripped of clothing as fast as possible, a task more difficult than it sounds.

"Sol," Eridan says shortly, and you wait to see if he'll continue that train of thought, but you suppose he just wanted to say your name. That's fine with you, you'd never think a stupid seadweller accent could make it sound so sweet. He can say it as much as he wants as long as...wait, what?

"ED, this is kind of fucked up," you say hurriedly, gasping a bit as his bulge twines with yours. "I am hardcore red for you right now and it's actually freaking me out a little." 

There's a silence. "You too?" he says finally.

"Well, fuck," you say with resignation. "I'm just gonna–" he trails his teeth gently down your neck, "–go with it–" his lips find your bare collarbone, "–would you hold on for a second, that's rather distracting–" you feel him smirk against your chest as he moves downward, but then he pauses, looks up at you.

"Do you really want me to stop?"

"...No. Hell no." Your last shred of dignity goes out the window as he takes your bulge in his mouth, and you squeeze your eyes shut, reach for one of his horns with your hands, gripping blindly as his lips tighten around you, tenderly so that his teeth cannot scrape, overwhelmed and out of breath over how intense something so fucking _gentle_ can be. You never got anywhere with FF before she... and you'd always thought kismessistude was intense, your little black flings with KK, but this, this...

He's back at your lips as if he couldn't stay away from them for too long, and when you kiss him you taste yourself, which is somehow a turn-on, though you have you idea why. When you feel his bulge rub hard against your stomach, you break the kiss again to make some sort of conciliatory suggestion, but he's already pulling back, running his fingers over the bifurcation of your bulge and leading it towards his nook, face flushed lavender and eyes averted with changrin. 

Well. Okay then. The chill of his skin is already faded from prolonged contact with yours, even his lips warmed to the touch, but his nook is still seadweller-cool, and you hiss a breath at the contrast. 

"Sol, you're so fuckin' hot, how are you even real," he murmurs, and you're not sure if he's referring to your body temperature or speaking personally but decide you don't care either way, your bloodpusher flipping as you reach for him, pulling him close and warming every point of contact where your bodies touch. He gasps. Your bulge is still moving inside him and you can actually feel him react against you when you're this close, the beat of his bloodpusher quickening to match yours and his legs shivering against your sides. "Sol," he whispers, his voice even quieter than before but breathed right by your ear, the syllables blowing your hair aside, "I'm close."

"Me too," you manage, and you think briefly about pails before deciding it would be rather presumptuous of you to suggest it at this age. There will be other times. There will be other times, right?

You can feel your body temperature spike even higher as the pressure inside you builds, and Eridan is right there with you, shaking in your arms and reaching out with quivering hands to stroke at the bases of your horns until, at the peak, you both still entirely. You send the tiniest spark of psionics down at him when you know he's almost there, and that's what finally does it. The fluttering movement of Eridan around you and his little moans as he comes are enough to set you off right away, crashing back down to Alternia in waves and pressing him as close to you as you can manage for the duration. When you finally relax and he sits back up to look at you, you survey the damage, wincing a little remorsefully at the state of your respiteblock. The mixture of colors running down his thighs and dripping onto the floor of your hive isn't really a pretty one, kind of a murky lowblood brown when you get right down to it, but separately the contrast between the two of you is nice, you have to admit. Your thinkpan decides suddenly that it's monumentally important to remember how purple and yellow relate to each other from your minimal knowledge of color theory, and Eridan follows your gaze dimly. 

"Complimentary colors," he says, as if reading your thoughts. "They're nice side by side but not too pretty combined together, are they?" 

"Not really, no." You wonder if that's some sort of strange, metaphorical omen for the future of your relationship, but you shake it off. You'll worry about that later. For now, you should really find something to clean the both of you up. Eridan doesn't resist when you slide him off you, but grasps your wrist before you can stand.

"Sol," he begins, then presses a final kiss to your lips, long and lingering and sweet. It's almost enough to make you collapse back down at this point of overstimulation. "Thanks. I know this whole situation is fucked up, but... thanks."

"Shit," you say, looking at him, at his eyes wide with earnest and his face still flushed, at his hair uncharacteristically mussed up and tangled around his horns in a way you find inexplicably endearing.  "I'm such a goner, ED. What are we going to do?"

"We'll figure it out. Complimentary colors, right? Opposites bring out stability and all that." You wonder why the fuck he knows so much about color theory but leave that discussion for another time as well.

"If you say so," you say. "Now let me go, we need to get a towel before the slurry dries."

He does, and doesn't say a word, just leans back against the wall of your hive and smiles. 


End file.
